| The use of the concept of privacy is common in many academic disciplines. Additionally, privacy appears to be important to many outside the academy. The problem is that privacy has multitudinous meanings. Hence, the use of the concept can confound communication, as well as facilitate it.; Privacy scholarship can generally be divided into two parts--legal and social science. Legal writers and social scientists have made conceptual contributions, but from their own perspectives, utilizing different paradigms of inquiry. While there is interdisciplinary interest in privacy, problems communicating across disciplines arise, due to wide-ranging conceptualizations of the term "privacy." The use of the term privacy, as a concept outside specialized areas of expertise, only directs one to a broad range of conditions, states, claims, abilities, and rights. Without clues from the context or additional information, the intended meaning may be missed.; This study investigates the following two research questions: (1) What is the range of meaning of social science conceptualizations of privacy, and (2) What is the range of meaning of legal conceptualizations of privacy? After the ranges of meanings are thoroughly established, the study notes conceptual links that could contribute to interdisciplinary coordination of previously incongruous paradigms of privacy scholarship. It also proposes a privacy nomenclature system for conceptual coordination. The system utilizes five major privacy concepts. They are, informational privacy, spatial privacy, personal choice privacy, interactional privacy, and experiential privacy. Specific privacy concept labels or qualifiers should function to enhance effective communication of existing and future privacy knowledge. |
